Cont: Trans Women are not Women 4

[Emily's Cat]

Nope. I have always been a man, and an unapologetic masculine hairy hunter.

But I can tell you something for nothing. I would not ever have the sheer gall to tell someone else what they may or may not be. I would simply accept them for what and who they are. End of.

You have a different view. You think you decide. And you are wrong. You don't get to decide. I don't get to decide. Every person makes their own path. As long as it's within the law, OK by me.

But that is not your way, is it? You want everyone to conform to a standard that you are actually ashamed to state out front.

Put up or shut up. State your standard. I stated mine. As far as I am concerned, we are all captains of our own ships so long as we break no laws.

Need me to state it again?

Or have you none? Have you not thought out where I know you are going with this? Because this is not my first rodeo. I had a daughter and now I have a son. Would that bother you? Didn't bother me. Why does it bother you so much? I'm wondering how you might explain that? Because I know you can't.

But feel free to try. I know from years of experience what you will present. Do your best.

Are you sober? I can't follow this post at all. I have no idea what you're trying to say, and it doesn't seem to follow from anything that it is replying to.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Constantly bringing up a threat that doesn't exist except in your own mind.

Because I'm imaging it, being hysterical, and overreacting, yes?

If a cisgender man presenting as he is tries to get into a women's shelter for example, the people in charge can see through his crap and deny him access. And that is perfectly fine.

What if it's a transwomen presenting as a man? What if the people in charge don't know if it's a cisman or a transwoman and can't tell? What if they ask the very masculine looking person who is presenting as a man, and that person declares that they are a transwoman?

How does anyone tell if it is sincere or if it is, as you say, crap?

 

[Emily's Cat]

I think it's fair to acknowledge that biology plays a more overt part in the daily lives and internal identities of biological women than it does for biological men.

Also, as a biologist, I tend to think of male and female as terms for sex.

Biology plays a very large part in gender presentation, as well as in the socially enforced gender roles we face, and the lived experience.

Biological sex plays a much larger role in our lives than many transgender people are willing to concede. And insisting over and over again that biological sex is irrelevant when insisting that females relinquish their spaces and their rights is at best inconsiderate and demonstrative of a lack of compassion and empathy.

 

[caveman1917]

Yeah, I think that appropriation and re-defnintion of terms is a fait accompli.

My point isn't about appropriation and re-definition of terms as such. I find the notion of "ownership" of terms nonsensical. My point is about the equivocation, for example:

Woman can refer to either sex or gender
I am a woman
Therefor I should have access to women-only spaces

The second statement using woman in the sense of gender, the third using woman in the sense of sex, as can easily be determined by the spaces in question being divided into two classes rather than a spectrum of them.

 

[Emily's Cat]

So yes, this is definitely a case where suspicion would be warranted. I can't say for sure or not if she is truly trans without knowing more about her (might be a troll like that Zuba person), but while looking like that I would not want her in single-sex spaces with me.

This is the right that I, and other females, are asking to retain.
This is the right that transgender activist organizations are asking that we relinquish.
This is the right that self-declaration alone, without a medical diagnosis and with no transition activity required, would remove from females - and from you.

This is why I am opposed to self-declaration of gender identity granting full legal protections - it would force you as well as me to be obligated to accept that person into our private spaces.

 

[Emily's Cat]

My position is that they are all people and can self identify as whatever they wish.

Okay, fair enough stance. How far does it extend?

Currently, sex is a protected class. It's protected for good reason, because females (biological females) have been systematically discriminated against and oppressed for thousands of years. Females still face a significant amount of social bias and systemic sexism... as well as fairly blatant sexism and misogyny in many cases.

Disability and Race are also protected classes.

In this context, the stance that people are people and can self-identify however they want presents a bit of a conflict with rights and protections. A person who is male bodied, by declaring themselves to be a woman, would then be entitled to access sex-based protections and rights.

It seems that your position is that this is okay, it's not a big deal, and people should be allowed to do so if that's how they feel. Is this a correct interpretation of your view?

Assuming it is correct... does your view also extend to other protected characteristics? If an able-bodied person self-identifies as disabled (transabled), should they then be viewed as disabled by the rest of society, and be entitled to park in the handicapped parking spots and compete in the paralympics? If a white person self-identifies as black, should they then be viewed as black by society, and be granted access to services and scholarships intended to address social inequities against black people?

 

[Emily's Cat]

In my experience? Usually religious. What's your experience?

At the moment, my experience is that I cannot for the life of me figure out what you're trying to communicate. I mean, I got the implied insults and nastiness from you just fine... but you're not making any sense at all.

How about using full sentences and describing your views and positions on this? It would be much more useful.

 

[Darat]

Okay, fair enough stance. How far does it extend?

Currently, sex is a protected class. It's protected for good reason, because females (biological females) have been systematically discriminated against and oppressed for thousands of years. Females still face a significant amount of social bias and systemic sexism... as well as fairly blatant sexism and misogyny in many cases.

...snip...

Sex as a protected class does not mean female.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Not at all. It's just that they are a separate issue from transgender rights. In exactly the same way, rights and protections for (say) homosexuals or black people are not addressed in the debate over gender identity - but that doesn't mean they've "been disappeared".

And on the matter of the rights and protections that are due to a) biological females and b) women, it's perfectly possible (and, obviously, desirable) to address the issue of transgender identity rights while at the same time taking care to protect the rights of biological females and women.

And here's one of the major sticking points.

Transgender activist organizations have been (and in some cases have been successful) at interpreting "sex" in those protections to mean "gender", which does actually replace sex-based rights. It removes those sex-based rights completely and pretends that they are rights and protections based on an internal feeling of what gender one is.

Additionally, those transgender activists organizations have been systematically seeking to literally replace the word "sex" with the word "gender" in many documents governing equal opportunity, protections, and expected treatment in employer situations.

As I've said before - I'm happy to fight alongside transgender people and their allies in order to ADD gender identity as a protected characteristic. I do NOT, however, approve of REPLACING sex-based rights and protections with gender identity rights and protections because that erases the sex-based protections and rights..

 

[Emily's Cat]

The weird thing to me is that you made a clear concession to the redefinition of the word woman by explicitly using "female" so that it could be very clear exactly which group you were referring to.

To have Boudicca then go on to say that she's a female.

Pretty soon you're going to use "ovarian" and we'll get the claim that one doesn't need ovaries to be an "ovarian".

This might be the slipperiest slope I've ever encountered.

 

[Meadmaker]

In your post you suggested I had ignored the survey. When I bring up that I have addressed it you say that you had considered that but edited it out. I'm confused.

Because it made the post too complicated. I will now address this in a single post, where it won't distract from some other message.

I cannot say that I have done more than skim every single post in the tread, so I may have missed where you addressed it. I have not seen your response to the important evidence in the survey.

In your responses that I have seen, you say that the survey tells that the majority of British women accept transgenders in public locker rooms.

However, the survey had two parts. In part one, it asked about transgenders. In part two, it specifically asked about transgenders that had not had gender reassignment surgery. In that case, the majority of British women said that the transgenders ought to be excluded from female only changing rooms. (I believe, but I di not recall with certainty, that it said transgenders without gender reassignment surgery should still have access to public loos of the self-declared gender.)

It is the second part that matches my position, and Emily's Cat's position. It is my belief that a majority of women would reject transgender people who still had male sex organs from women's locker rooms. That's what that survey said, and so I will cite that survey as evidence for my belief.

Do you have evidence that I am incorrect in my belief?

And, to repeat, it is possible you already addressed part two of the survey, but if so, I must have skimmed past it.

 

[Meadmaker]

There is no intrinsic 'right' or 'wrong' embedded in the meaning of words. If you think so, you may be interested in trying the Bible. I hear that people who read it put a lot of faith in the power of the word.

You are using another meaningless analogy. The Bible is not part of this debate. Reference to it can only distract.

As for your first sentence, I don't know how to apply it to anything anyone has said in this thread, so I won't try.

What I meant in my post is that we cannot talk make a case for or against anything having to do with "men" or with "women" unless we have a definition for "man" or "woman". That's true for every other argument about anything else, as well.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I see such discomfort as a secondary concern to not discriminating against trans people as a class. Women that are uncomfortable sharing quarters with trans people, or with queer people, or with whatever protected class they find distasteful can make other accommodations, such as paying extra for private quarters, if available.

The mere existence of trans people is not an affront to womanhood.

The "discomfort" of females, which includes actual safety and privacy, has been viewed as secondary to the desires and whims of males throughout all of history.

All of your posts essentially boil down to "**** females, male people who identify as woman are more important than them"

I invite you to restate your opinion in order to alter my inference.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

The "discomfort" of females, which includes actual safety and privacy, has been viewed as secondary to the desires and whims of males throughout all of history.

All of your posts essentially boil down to "**** females, male people who identify as woman are more important than them"

I invite you to restate your opinion in order to alter my inference.

I assure you, racists that would rather not share a sleeper car with "lesser" races also couch their bigotry in terms of safety. The inherent criminality and danger of black people, for example, is one of the chief claims made by American white supremacists.

Such claims are the bedrock of many bigotries.

 

[Darat]

The "discomfort" of females, which includes actual safety and privacy, has been viewed as secondary to the desires and whims of males throughout all of history.

...snip...

That is trying to sneak in a new meaning for the word "discomfort" to make a false equivalence.

Discomfort means in the context SuburbanTurkey used it:

make (someone) feel uneasy, anxious, or embarrassed.
"he appeared to be discomforted by the questioning"​

 

[caveman1917]

I assure you, racists that would rather not share a sleeper car with "lesser" races also couch their bigotry in terms of safety.

And if it were true that black people were responsible for over 95% of racially-motivated assaults with over 95% of its victims being white people, then those racists might have a point. Or at least those were the percentages I seem to recall from EC's figures for sexual assaults categorized by male/female perpetrator and victim.

Such claims are the bedrock of many bigotries.

Claims appealing to safety are the bedrock of many things, including the entire field of labour safety legislation.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

You are using another meaningless analogy. The Bible is not part of this debate. Reference to it can only distract.

As for your first sentence, I don't know how to apply it to anything anyone has said in this thread, so I won't try.

What I meant in my post is that we cannot talk make a case for or against anything having to do with "men" or with "women" unless we have a definition for "man" or "woman". That's true for every other argument about anything else, as well.

And the whole discussion can be avoided by using the terms trans and cis because then you have 4 groups which are largely uncontroversial*. The entire discussion of asking people to define 'woman' is a complete red herring. Because even if you conclude that a transman is not a real "man" (just for a change) that doesn't get us any closer to deciding whether we can and should treat a transman as a real "man" for legal or social purposes.

Equally, I doubt that if we could define a transman as a real "man" in someway that anyone who objects to bepenised people going into women's locker rooms is going to change their mind on whether bepenised people going into women's locker rooms is OK.



*I recall at least 1 person on this thread considers the term cis a grave insult (possibly a misogynist one) and that does seem to be a thing amongst the more radical anti-trans lobby but I consider it so ******* crazy that I think reasonable people can dismiss it.

 

[Meadmaker]

And the whole discussion can be avoided by using the terms trans and cis because then you have 4 groups which are largely uncontroversial*.

So far, so good.

The entire discussion of asking people to define 'woman' is a complete red herring. Because even if you conclude that a transman is not a real "man" (just for a change) that doesn't get us any closer to deciding whether we can and should treat a transman as a real "man" for legal or social purposes.

Ahh, but here we disagree.

The reason we disagree is because at some point, we ask, "Why should we treat you like a man?" If the answer given by the person asked is "because I am a man", another person might respond "No, you are not a man." At that point, we have to have a definition of "man" in order to settle it.

When it comes to playing on a sports team, we have historically had a "women's" competition. If we take your first suggestion, and eliminate the two "man/woman" categories, and replace them with four "cis/trans//man/woman" categories, we have to change the way we do sports. So do we have four categories? We have discarded "women" because we didn't have a definition, so what should we do instead?

I would propose a cis-woman/trans-man category. If that's bulky we can call it the "ovarian" category.

And we can do the same thing with locker rooms. Now everyone understands the definitions.

Problem solved?

Equally, I doubt that if we could define a transman as a real "man" in someway that anyone who objects to bepenised people going into women's locker rooms is going to change their mind on whether bepenised people going into women's locker rooms is OK.

That's true, but I would be curious what you think the implications of the statement are. I think the implications are that the existence of the penis is actually more important than the words used to label the person attached to it.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Because it made the post too complicated. I will now address this in a single post, where it won't distract from some other message.

I cannot say that I have done more than skim every single post in the tread, so I may have missed where you addressed it. I have not seen your response to the important evidence in the survey.

In your responses that I have seen, you say that the survey tells that the majority of British women accept transgenders in public locker rooms.

However, the survey had two parts. In part one, it asked about transgenders. In part two, it specifically asked about transgenders that had not had gender reassignment surgery. In that case, the majority of British women said that the transgenders ought to be excluded from female only changing rooms. (I believe, but I di not recall with certainty, that it said transgenders without gender reassignment surgery should still have access to public loos of the self-declared gender.)

It is the second part that matches my position, and Emily's Cat's position. It is my belief that a majority of women would reject transgender people who still had male sex organs from women's locker rooms. That's what that survey said, and so I will cite that survey as evidence for my belief.

Do you have evidence that I am incorrect in my belief?

And, to repeat, it is possible you already addressed part two of the survey, but if so, I must have skimmed past it.

I'm reminded of yourself saying not too many days ago that you don't trust survey data generally because it can be manipulated and so much depends on how questions asked.

First of all the survey says several contradictory things - that transpeople should be able to self-ID but not do anything that self-ID means, that transwomen are women and transmen are men, but transwomen shouldn't be able to compete in women's sports for example. They've also been a bit naughty by collating 2 surveys into one here.

It states that women believe allowing transwomen access to women's spaces presents no real risk to women.

It's only when you specify that they have not had gender reassignment surgery that things change - and given the muddle that preceded it I don't know that we can trust that people at this point are making informed responses. Even if they are, you've prompted someone to think about a transperson's genitals. That could possibly trigger an emotional reaction to the question. I'm not sure why they didn't ask the whole bank of question again including the risk one. But hey ho.

It seems to me that if you ask people about whether they are supportive of trans rights they say yes they are. If you ask them about Self-ID or access or any other issue again... they support it. But there are also ways that you can ask about it that prompt more negative responses. So I think you can probably look at the survey and take what you want from it.

One thing that does look consistent is that those who most strongly oppose trans-rights are old, Tory, Brexiteers. Which I find utterly unsurprising but why should it be the case? Why should it be that being Anti-EU correlates with being anti-trans? It seems a lot like it's just Gammons and Karens picking their side and opposing anything they see as progressive. From my experience they are also the people probably least likely to ever meet a transperson in a locker room.

Safe-spaces for old right wing blowhards is a policy I could get behind however. Preferably on the ***** moon.

 

[Olmstead]

I assure you, racists that would rather not share a sleeper car with "lesser" races also couch their bigotry in terms of safety. The inherent criminality and danger of black people, for example, is one of the chief claims made by American white supremacists.

Such claims are the bedrock of many bigotries.

But ... these things are already segregated ... all you did was change the terms of the segregation ... black people who identify as white can now be in sleeper car, but black people who identify as black cannot ... and this is okay? ... does not compute ... system shutting down ...